


October is Uncool

by Sarahsorad



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Dysfunctional Family, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Platonic Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-25
Updated: 2012-07-31
Packaged: 2017-11-10 16:43:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/468466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarahsorad/pseuds/Sarahsorad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>October is always a busy month of Kishin hunting for all meisters and weapons and it just got worse with Kami in town. Maka will go out of her way to please the demanding lady. She already switched out of Stein's class so there's no telling what she'll do when she realizes her mom also doesn't like me. Can't a cool guy like me ever get a break?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Whipped Creme Coffee Wannabe

**Author's Note:**

> This is one of my favorite works that I've done as a fanfiction writer so I felt that it's only fitting to have it be the first thing I post here. This story would take place in the manga shortly after the group rescued Kidd. I decided Soul's point of view would work best for this and while there ARE some disadvantages of being limited to him I think the advantages outweigh them.
> 
> And I don't own Soul Eater

There are very few ways to wake up in a cool manner, I mean let's face it even those of us who are just gifted with coolness can't look too cool when they're stumbling out of bed wiping buggers out of their eyes at the crack of dawn. In general sleeping is much cooler than waking up, but of course I strive wake up cool when I must wake up seeing as I am such a cool guy. Now a problem here is having a cool title (Death Scythe to be exact) means it's pretty hard to wake up in a cool way, the nights are later, days off don't happen as often and mornings are earlier. Since the missions are harder it means having more downtime in-between them; in this case it was for recovery purposes. One would think that their meister having stitches removed the day before and still being on and off of pain-killers would mean that she wouldn't be jumping all over the apartment at six in the morning.

One would think Maka Albarn wouldn't be making excited, ear killing girly screams at anytime during the day, and even the jumping around was unlike her in the first place. Now if the noise hadn't already woken me up and made me wonder if that nutty Dr. Stein had given her the wrong kind of pain-pills; then came the knocking open of my door and

"Soul, wake up! Soul! Soul!"

"Maka! What the hell?" Seriously, WHAT THE HELL?

"Soul! She sent- I got-" she was flagging some piece of paper around and didn't seem like she'd be able to get over her excitement long enough to form a full sentence.

"Will you chill out? It's six in the morning, you're not making sense and didn't you just get stitches removed around ten hours ago with strict orders not to jump around and shit and reopen your wounds?"

"Soul what an insult! My skin isn't that crappy and weak that… ow"

I sighed and turned on my bed lamp, "Turn around."

"It's probably fine, if it started bleeding I'm sure I would-" I tugged her around before she could finish whatever she was going to say

"Wouldn't really feel it at all." I sighed at the blood now starting to seep through the back of what used to by my Rolling Stones t-shirt. My meister is an idiot.

Luckily Doctor Stein is always willing to make morning house calls to re-stitch idiot misters; when they're one of his best students anyway, he might let other idiot meisters just chill around and bleed out a little while.

"Whether you like hearing it or not, you're a bit of a masochist like your father is." The mad doctor chuckled a bit doing his patch work while Maka huffed a sigh and muttered whatever new names she'd thought of for her creepy father in the past few hours.

I sipped my coffee, ignoring the glare she was casting my way, she didn't agree with calling Professor Stein so early in the morning saying it wasn't that bad and could wait. If it really wasn't so bad she could have snatched the phone from me when I was making the call.

"So, when can I get these ones out?"

"I'm using glue this time since the part you popped open isn't as deep as the initial cut, it's not as strong as stitches but it'll do provided you don't jump around." He smirked "Besides, do something like this again and I'll just sedate you, maybe accidently dissect you while I'm at it."

Her face pinked a bit and she glared at me again mouthing what I'm pretty sure was "I hate you Soul"

I laughed she looked like a pissed off four-year-old. "You did this, not me; seriously what the hell were you even going on about?"

She hadn't let go of the letter she was holding this entire time, she flagged it a bit earning a flick to the back of her hear curtsey of Stein "It's from Mama."

"Kami? Sending a real form of communication?" Professor Stein was tugging off his gloves tossing them into the wastebasket nearest to the couch

Maka nodded "She's coming to the city for all of October, apparently to teach a quick class."

"Ah, Shinigami mentioned something about a quick workshop on Resynching, I wouldn't have thought it was Kami but I guess he wouldn't want to mention it was her teaching it around Spirit."

"Anyway, she'll be here for 2 weeks before, so only one week until she's here and one extra week after the class, she said she wants to meet my partner and stuff." Maka was sitting up now, pulling my Pink Floyd t-shirt down over her newly-closed and bandaged back wound, if she ruined this one, I think I might have cried.

Stein smirked at me "You're in for it Soulie boy, better be on your Ps and Qs for Kami, she's a viper."

I rolled my eyes "If she's as much like Maka as you all say, I think I can handle her. At least she won't wake me up so early just to bleed all over my shirts."

And that's when a book slammed into my head, not cool at all.

When I finally came to Maka was chattering with Blair in the kitchen, the earlier beating of my skull seemed mostly forgotten.

"But with only a week to get ready, and there's a lot I need to do; this whole apartment could use some cleaning." Maka acknowledged my presence by shoving a plate of food onto the table and turning back to chatter more with the cat. I can't say I can complain about food, especially when breakfast isn't something lame like cold cereal or grainy boxed oatmeal. Spartoi had been keeping us too busy to usually eat a normal breakfast on weekdays and any non-mission weekends consisted of anything but giving a crap about breakfast. This recovery period was pretty nice if for nothing else but food.

"Death Scythe will be so thrilled to hear I bet."

Maka shot the cat a dirty look "Don't say a word to him Blair! If he doesn't already know then he doesn't need to." Blair winced, flattening her ears against her head; she must have realized all too late how much of an idiotic thing it was to bring up Spirit Albarn. "Besides it's his fault she left anyway, that disgusting bastard." Maka angrily mumbled into her orange juice gulping down the last of the glass before refilling it and muttering more.

I sighed, this was going to be a crappy morning even more so.

"Blair is sorry," the cat chirped "Anyway I should be going to work now." With a poof she transformed into her somewhat human form, scantily clad, somewhat covered by tiny leather pieces that could never be called clothing, and little ribbons, purple ribbons, which tied around her shapely legs, and hour glass waist, and her nearly completely exposed chest.

Which was right in my face…. And then smothering me… and I,

I expected to be chopped for the nosebleed.

I was prepared and everything even as the cat-lady skipped off, a cracked an eye open after a few seconds to see Maka shoving dishes into the dish washer, still muttering about her idiot father.

Wait, I can't call him an idiot when his existence just saved my brain from being hurt again on this un-cool morning can I?

No, never mind I take that back, if anything he's probably the cause of her violence towards me and anything unfortunate enough to have male genitalia in her presence. Spirit Albarn is the worst idiot in the world giving man-kind a powerful foe named Maka Albarn; we already had to deal with feminists before Maka, Amazon women, yeah apparently they weren't too nice to boys, Maka's mother was supposed to be amazingly powerful and now Maka following in her footsteps. Spirit Albarn probably started the doom of man-kind, ironically enough over his love of women.

"Kami."

That was the word of the firkin' week, if Death Scythe wasn't wailing it while running all over the academy then other teachers were saying it. If the teachers weren't talking the class sign up sheets all over the academy could remind me every few minutes, and then there was the chatter from students, I'm pretty sure there was a rumor about her having G-sized boobs. Blackstar couldn't even shut his trap about Maka's mom stealing his spotlight and how he'd take her class just to make sure she regretted it, I really wish he hadn't mentioned that in front of Maka.

"If you pull any stunts I will kick your ass Blackstar!"

"Tch! Like you could handle big ol' me!" he laughed, and Maka glared

"Stop being so cocky!"

"Make me."

"Fine!"

And then Tsubaki and I had to spend our entire lunch break separating the two since neither of them really needed to be physically fighting with each other during down time… I really wanted to finish that sandwich too.

The two days before Kami was due in town were riddled with:

"Hey Soul, do you think it looks organized enough in here?"

"Soul, just wearing my Spartoi uniform is casual but at the same time formal right?"

"Ah what if she ends up coming over and I have to cook?"

"Soul, take your feet off the coffee table I don't want it to get scuffed and Mama to see it and think I'm a slob"

"Soul please don't act all deadpan when you meet my Mama."

"You'd tell me if I accidentally did my pigtails lopsided right?"

"My cooking is okay right?"

"Should I just order takeout if Mama comes over or would take out make me seem too lazy to cook?"

And the more excited and uptight Maka got about her mother's visit; the more excited I got… for it to be over with already! Seriously, how much nagging can a Death Scythe take? I would still bet serious money saying Maka didn't sleep at all the night before. She woke me up at five in the morning; we weren't going to meet up with her mother in town until eleven. October is always a busy month for missions no matter what the level of a Meister or Weapon and not getting one's human-right of proper sleep whenever possible just before and during the month of October should be a crime.

Kami Albarn was slated to meet with us at Express-Oh coffee shop, a boring store that only plays bad music and had furniture made from books; bad tastes must run in my meister's DNA.

She kept tapping her foot, and drumming on the table, and she was on her third girly over sugary 80% whipped cream coffee-wannabe. I was starting to feel like I was watching a 6-year old with the way she couldn't seem to sit still.

"There!" she tugged me by the tie to glance out the window that we were already sitting beside, you should never tug someone by the tie, it hurts like hell.

Anyway, she wanted me to see the lady walking towards the store, a tall nearly brown haired woman with the same green eyes as my meister, a better fashion sense and some assets that well matched my meister's. Her father always acted as if his ex wife was built in the chest department, but it wasn't much to see. Maka really did favor her mother; of course I still wouldn't tell her to this day that her face takes more after her father's, mostly because I like life.

As soon as I turned my head back to speak to my meister, I noticed she'd already left her seat and made her way to meet up with Kami not far from the front door. I stayed put, they were hugging and making quick but uncool greetings, standing near that would be way too awkward for me. She approached the table giving her mother the seat by the window and ordering another one of those damned 'frape du whip' things.

"This is Soul-Eater Evans mama." She just had to use my last name, she of all people knows I don't like that name. "We finished soul collecting a few months back."

"Scythe right?" Kami glanced curiously at me, almost like a lion looks at a piece of meat "Top heavy, with a big blade, or more sickle-like and agile?"

"More top heavy?" I answered awkwardly, but seriously, whose first question about someone is something like that?

"Curvature?"

"Uhhh…." I have no clue to this day what the proper answer for that was but apparently Maka knew well enough to tell her all the awkward details of my weapon form.

"How about your synch and resonance rates?"

"84.5 Stable"

"Not bad." She smiled a bit, sipping on that, whatever the hell French-wannabe coffee she had was. "What's your Star rank sweetie?"

"Ah 2 stars, I wannabe a 3-star meister before next fall but with Asura around and such soul collecting is kind of taking a back seat and we're mostly working on combat modes and stuff, along with special missions."

"Oh, I heard some rattling about that when I was in Senegal, kudos to your fuck-up father for not being by Shinigami-Sama's side when that Kishin was freed."

I've never really felt like the insults Spirit got weren't right until that one, anyone who really knew the situation of Asura being freed knew that organization and timing were more at fault than anything else. Besides, without Spirit being wielded by Professor Stein Medusa could have caused more damage and who knew if we would have been able to match her power at the time. It's probably thanks to that bumbling idiot that Maka wasn't skewered by a vector arrow and the fact that Kami could say anything about Spirit being there just showed how much she didn't know about the situation.

"I can't believe he didn't get a transfer after that."

"Cleaned the academy from top to bottom for weeks."

"Well he was always good at kissing ass, figurative and literal for all those bimbo-" Kami stopped mid sentence and redirected her thoughts "Well, it's of no matter now, as long as you're still on my side I don't care what that man does."

"How could I not be on your side? That man is ridiculous, I can't even bring myself to claim him, he's sick."

"That's my girl." Kami quirked an eyebrow at me "You're a quiet one aren't you?"

Maka chuckled "Until you get to know him he is. Anyway, did you still want to see the apartment today?"

Kami looked a bit surprised by the question, though I was sure Maka mentioned planning for her to come by and see the apartment "Oh sweetie I forgot, I'm supposed to meet with Shinigami-sama in a few hours and I wanted to freshen up before so I wouldn't have the time today."

"Oh, that's alright." Maka had that look she gets on her face when Professor Stein omits her from extra credit lessons because her grade doesn't need the help; that secretly disappointed look. "What about tomorrow?"

"Well it's possible, but I have to go by your idiot father's place, it seems he has some of my vital paperwork that I'll need filed in order to teach."

"Oh, you probably wouldn't want to go many places after having to be there would you?"

Kami chuckled "Well I may go down a couple of drinks but that might be it." I never thought Kami would be the type to drink from the way everyone talked about her, she was a saint. "I'll just call you when I'm free, that work?"

Maka nodded "Oh Mama, you're teaching about Resynching right?"

Kami nodded "I am, you planning to take it for the bonus credit hours?"

"Actually, I was wondering if you needed help, I mean Soul and I passed the two weeks assessment Sid gave with flying colors."

"Oh well, passing assessments are nice, and I know it's under your skill level, at least I could only hope it is at this point… but bonus credit hours look nice on big mission applications."

And the nagging began at 7am sharp the next morning before our morning class started

"Soul" She was hugging her textbook with a pout that I'm sure would only work on her father and probably hadn't been practiced too often.

"No way Maka."

"But Soul, it's just for the month, and only twice a week… look I know it's a Thursday afternoon, and I know that's usually a basketball day but we won't have this chance again."

"You said yourself, October is a really busy month for missions and you're already stressing over December exams since you want to stay at the top of the class why add to your to-do list?"

"I can handle it, mama even says so. All we really have to do is take just weekend missions if we're not assigned anything to do for Spartoi. I'll just need to be on campus a little early on Monday to check for those kinds of things."

"Not factoring in hospital time?"

"Shut up Soul! That doesn't happen that often."

I wanted to remind her that we've been to the hospital after the last 2 missions but I gave my argument up before starting. "Just saying."

"No! This can work, Mama's classes are on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 5, our classes get out at 3 so we could just stay on campus until 5 and we'll get home around 8 or 8:30, we could just order out for food on those nights."

"Those are usually your nights to cook"

She rolled her eyes "If that's really the problem I'll take your Monday night then and we won't alternate Sundays anymore I'll just take it for the month."

"If we do most of our mission work on the weekends we'll be getting home on Sundays, I highly doubt you'll want to cook."

"Soul, please; she's only in town for the month."

"Spend time with her out of class then, she can't be that busy."

"She seems like it, besides it's just a month it shouldn't be that big a deal for you to be inconvenienced for just a month. You need the extra credit anyway."  
I should have known she'd play that card and prepared an argument against it but sadly I never seem to think far enough ahead.

"Two extra missions could get that credit."

"Please Soul, I'll even do all of the laundry."

I suck at laundry.  
Do you know how uncool it is to be stuck in pink for a week because of one stupid red sock? If you do then you know why it was that offer that sold me on it.

"Fine." I slammed my locker shut "but don't complain when it's obviously too much work."

"Thank you! "She smiled, jump hugging me and making a girly squeal in front of god and everyone; seriously uncool.

I will never understand how people who sleep so quiet and easily have this thing about choosing to wake up insanely early and hardly sleeping the night before something big will happen. Is it seriously so hard to hit the snooze button at 4 AM? Who is really going to rush to be at the academy by six in the morning to get a mission? Maybe 3 other people or someone in serious need but not really anyone.

Know how cold mornings are in Nevada before the sun rises?  
I realize that meisters and weapons are supposed to be tuff but it's kind of crappy to have a school in such a horrible climate.

Motorcycles also don't like running properly when it's so early.

Maka likes running when she's trying to get somewhere early and the bike isn't working.

She's my meister so I can't really let her run around the city alone while it's still dark.

Sometimes, being a weapon really sucks.

Next time I'm sleeping in.

So fast forward one cold ass walk up the giant mass of stairs and It's five thirty in the morning and I'm freezing my ass off because Maka refuses to wear pants and naturally I end up feeling bad for her and lend her my jacket for use on her frozen legs as we camp out beside the mission board which hasn't even been updated yet. I really just wanted to take a freaking nap, the cold always makes me sleepy; I don't understand how Maka could just sit there reading her textbook.

"Mama!" soul perception must work like Spidy-Senses because I swear she noticed Kami's presence before the clicking of her heels even sounded in the hall.

"Maka? Isn't it early?" Even her apparently workaholic mother must have thought this set up was a little overzealous!

"Soul and I needed to stop by early to check mission assignments so I can plan for the week."

"Oh, I heard one is opening in Canada, Stein was reading over the briefs on the new student missions and I instantly thought of you. Is he really a teacher?"

"Yeah, I'm in his class actually."

"I don't know if I feel okay about that I mean you do know he tried to, well he used to be your man-child of a father's partner and…" she trailed off a bit nervously searching for how to warn Maka about her insane teacher

"Oh I know. He's fine though, a really good teacher when he's not making us do a lot of dissections, of course some of those have been a little helpful. I can locate the jugular on five different species that kishin forms commonly mimic."

Kami gave a slight grimace and a nod "Well that is useful but it doesn't seem like it needed to be so hands-on."

Maka shrugged "He grows on you, I promise."

I don't think she could tell that her mother wasn't convinced, even if she could tell I doubt she'd admit it.

Four hours and one class into what was going to be the longest day of my life my attempt to spend my free-period (during which Maka took an elective class) admiring the back of my eyelids was interrupted by an argument outside of the mostly empty classroom door.

"Marie, it is hardly your business."

"I'm sorry Kami but this is just ridiculous; he's no more a danger to your daughter than her partner is."

"Have you seen my ex husband's scars?"

"yes."

"Oh so you've seen him naked right?"

"No! That's a horrible idea"

"No I wasn't implying that, just pushing forward the fact that you have not seen all of his scars. I know you have a soft spot for Stein but that's you and it's fine if you are okay with risking your well being by being around the man but she is my daughter and I know what is best for her and I don't want her around someone who was obsessed with finding out how her father,-" I could hear the cringe in Kami's voice "tweaked."

"He won't touch her Kami, he jokes around more than anything Maka knows that; just over a week ago he made a house call at six in the morning because Maka had reopened a wound."

"She didn't mention a wound to me."

"She should be mostly healed by now anyway so I guess it's not relevant. Besides you've only really spent time with her once since you got back into town I doubt she'd have any reservations about telling you she probably just didn't have the chance. Now back to the subject of Stein honestly Kami I-"

"How the hell does she end up wounded anyway? Her weapon should be keeping her safe."

"And he does, he's a great partner they wouldn't have made it so far if he wasn't. Please just lay off the boy and lay off of Stein until you've been here long enough to really see what's going on."

"I'm only here for the month."

"And if you're still worried by the end of the month then stay a little longer; it's not like we don't need extra help around here."

"I can't stay longer. I just need to make sure my daughter is on the right track before I leave again."

"What is so important that you can't stick around if you're so worried?"

"I just can't stick around. Nothing to it but that."

"No one is going to agree with you about Stein."

"They don't have to agree. I'm her legal guardian." She snapped, and the sound of her heels quickly clipping away resonated in the hall. I didn't expect Miss Marie to angrily stomp into the classroom herself and from the look on her face I don't think she expected to see me.

"Soul… good morning." She put a smile on her face quickly as if nothing had been said on the other side of the door, I figured if she wanted to pretend it didn't happen then that was for the best.

I let out a yawn "mornin'"

"Ahh I was just looking for my coffee cup." She pranced around the room in an overly dramatic way "but I guess it isn't here; maybe I left it in the teacher's lounge!"

This was going to be the shittiest month ever.


	2. Kitten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kami's class begins and a challenge is issued.

I was hoping Kami was all talk when it came to having Maka moved from Stein's class; after all it would mean that I couldn't copy her homework while she wasn't looking anymore. The next morning before our first class (History of Reaping 201) had even started; Maka was called to Shinigami-sama's office. Before lunch it seemed like the entire school knew that Kami loathed her ex-husband's ex-partner enough to have her daughter, his top student removed from his class. The entire school also seemed to know something about Marie having an affair with Sid but we're all sure that was just a bogus rumor. At any rate I doubt it would have bothered me at all if Maka had at least not seemed so willing to accept it; if her father had made this decision she would have fought him tooth and nail.

Lunch itself was filled with many nagging questions as to weather or not I'd follow her to the new class and obviously I'd have to; being her weapon and all we'd need to be in the same class for practical exams. I'd have to wait longer to have my class change finalized though. In Professor Stein's class we dissected worms and Ox gloated about how he had the upper edge on Maka in their ever-lasting battle of nerdyness; I must say it was nice to see Kim give him a little frontal lobe damage for being so lame.

That afternoon began Kami's useless class that Maka forced me to take with her. At least Blackstar signed up for the class and drug Tsubaki along in order to "remind Kami who is god"; I figured he'd make it a little more bearable. Needless to say the four of us were the only upperclassmen there and there weren't many very familiar faces besides that one girl who has a chick-crush on Maka, I think her name is Tsugumi or something like that.

"Before we begin I'm curious to see if any of you know what Resynching is."

Of course Maka's hand shot up, and Blackstar's of all people.  
"Go ahead then Blackstar." Kami seemed a little unsure that the blue haired assassin was capable of explaining Resynching; I'm sure we all were, I mean this is Blackstar we're talking about; he's not too bright.

"It's something partners can do during soul resonance that can increase the amount of time they hold resonance."

"That's, exactly right."

Blackstar was right, what in the hell was the world coming to?

"Who can tell me the step-by-step process for Resynching?"

Personally, I know how Resynching works and it's just one of those stupid things that Maka and I do without thinking about; pretty much every meister and weapon does it. Now I'm not trying to say that Maka isn't smart, she is but I am saying that she could only answer this question because she studied the topic a few hours before class.

"The first step is to engage a resonance and wait until it peaks, the peak will only last for a few split seconds during the average resonance so the weapon has to time their energy feed perfectly and the meister then also has to have perfect timing and accept the energy. After no more than 5 and no less than 2 cycles of the energy feed; meisters have build up enough usable wavelength so that the resonance is held twice as long as it would usually last."

"Mostly correct, but you did forget to mention that during the energy feed it is crucial to make no attacks or blocks that require utilizing soul wavelengths as doing so will cause the resonance to fail. Meisters who've gotten their feet wet in the field often forget this detail in the heat of battle and it can cost them, weapons as well; this makes it all the more imperative that both the meister and the weapon memorize even the simple techniques down to the last detail."

I really wanted to ask just how often some pair of morons forgets to hold back on wavelength based activities because it's always seemed like common sense; like chewing food before swallowing to avoid choking.

Kami handed out a pack of papers to each of the meisters and another pack to the weapons "While there are lots of technical aspects of Resynching most partners find it easier to start off with the least technical aspects. The first 50 questions are supposed to be answered directly by you, the second 50 questions you're supposed to answer as your partner. No sharing answers, the point is to see how well you know one another, this will help judge your potential resonance ability and it's fairly interesting. Doing poorly on this doesn't mean a failure of a partnership but anything too high or too low usually doesn't mean anything too good. You're free to leave when you finish; next week we'll make a serious start so study up."

I've taken at least 3 partner surveys before this one; each survey seemed stupider, I mean I don't see how knowing my meister's preference of Broadway Musical means our resonance is better. If Maka did like any musicals I'm sure they would be horrible by most standards. Maka seemed to care a little about idiotic surveys, when we first became partners. She used to trick me into playing twenty questions; of course after I found out her motive for it I started giving her the wrong answers on purpose… she hit me a lot for that. The questions on Kami's survey were a little different than movie or musical preferences; some were situational scenarios from battle to daily life and others were word association. Only someone kin to Maka would come up with a way to take a normal meaningless survey and complicate it.

I suppose I was hoping for a little too much when I thought for just one second that Maka might go ahead and finish the survey so that we could go home for the night; I'm positive she strived to be the last to finish. I'm not sure how long I slept after finishing before she woke me up.

"Soul c'mon you gotta drive."

"Are you sure you wouldn't want me to call you a cab Maka?"

"Nah don't go to all that trouble."

"Yeah no worries, if I could handle the two AM drive home from our Vegas mission I can handle Death City at night after class."

"Alright but drive carefully with my daughter on that thing."

It's funny how someone who seems to encourage her child to take up the dangerous profession of hunting kishin and witches would worry about her daughter on the back of a motorcycle; of course Death Scythe is the same way but he worries when Maka so much as sneezes.

"So you're coming over tomorrow night right?"

Kami nodded to Maka's question (this was news to me). "I've been curious about your living arrangements and besides; I've already been to your papa's pathetic excuse of a bachelor pad and it's sad to have been there before seeing where my daughter lives."

On the subject of Spirit, he's been surprisingly quiet since Kami came into town, the frantic phone calls for Maka and loud wailing in the academy halls stopped the day Kami got into town; it was a surprise, I expected him to get excited enough to either pee himself or die. Maybe Stein slipped him some kind of sedative, it would be a nice thing if he had it 24/7.

Maka was supposed to cook that night but I wasn't surprised when she made me stop to pick up takeout on the way home; something about cleaning the apartment taking standards over healthy food… I didn't really care anyway takeout is so much better than healthy food. It's not that Maka can't cook, after all (I'm pretty sure all girls are able to cook)… it's just that Maka never cooks many things that are good. Every once in a while she'll make pasta or loaded baked potatoes and those nights are awesome, most of the time she sticks to bland things that make me more than glad that we both rotate cooking duties.

I was cool with takeout and planning to just chill in my room and eventually nod off for the night but around half past ten Maka came skipping into my room (without even knocking). "Soul have you seen the vacuum? Blair's fur is everywhere in the living room."

"What the hell are you doing?"

She gave me this blank look as if it should have been obvious and everyone vacuums at nearly eleven at night. "M'cleaning a little, remember?"

"You cleaned before she even got into town there's no way we can collectively trash the place in 2 weeks when we're never even here aside from sleeping and occasionally eating."

"But there's cat hair and I never got to dust around the back of the tv stand until tonight. We also have to make sure we get rid of that trash in the kitchen on the way out in the morning. By the way want to give me your dirty laundry while I'm in here, might as well toss it in the wash tonight."

I groaned rolling off of my amazing comfortable bed and started gathering up clothes "I don't even have that much to go in the way we did laundry Sunday night. That trashcan is only half full there's no sense in changing it so soon."

"If we do a small load now we won't have to worry with a big load in a few days right?"

"Whatever. If the couch really bothers you just get Blair to poof it or whatever; she's gonna' come prancing in around and hour from now right?"

"I hope so, I really don't want her stumbling in tomorrow afternoon with a hangover, it'll be hard enough to explain her to Mama if she doesn't smell like alcohol and various colognes."

"Okay; one: it's not like your mom is a health inspector. Two: she's never even really around so I don't get why it matters if she likes the slutty cat; you know she won't anyway if she finds out where your dad hangs around is the place where Blair works. Three: this place has never been so clean so chill out already and stop acting like a nut."

I speak with total relevant, logical words and what do I get for them? The same thing I get for everything else; a book to the head.

Wednesday played out like any other day; throwing out some shallow fan mail, squeezing in time for a little basketball at lunch; lap running, Ox-Ford's disgusting shower dance afterwards, Blackstar breaking something, Kidd crying about it… hell Spirit was even back to gushing loudly about his daughter in his normal, slightly creepy fashion. The amazing illusion of normalcy was broken as soon as Maka and I made it home with Maka scrambling to clean up whatever it was she thought made the apartment look horrible; which kinda seemed like everything.

Kami showed up around five saying something about a meeting and how annoying it had been to have to let Spirit "lead the floor"… or something.

"This apartment isn't academy issued is it?"

"Oh no, we pay rent with our student allowances; or well we did before I made Soul a Death-Scythe but now that we get paid for missions I just throw my allowance into savings."

"Spirit didn't help with paying for it? I mean you had to furnish it too right?"

"We furnished it but it's not like I had to buy a lot of new furniture. Papa offered money for newer stuff but there was no way I was letting him. Besides we have one other roommate; she's not home right now though, I'm not sure where she's been actually."

"Is she a student?"

"She's a cat…" Maka hesitated, probably trying to figure out the best way to describe Blair "With a ridiculous amount of magic, she's not enrolled or anything; Papa knows her too actually."

"Wait, a cat? Shinigami-sama mentioned something about a cat with a lot of Magic."

"Oh? I was hoping everyone forgot about that incident."

Definitely an embarrassing topic.

After a quick big boring tour of the apartment we'd settled in the living room. The one thing I know for sure that Maka and her mother share is bluntness; the conversation instantly turned to Maka's amazingly cut up flesh that Marie mentioned during her and Kami's argument.

"So you were inside of the book and you got attacked by an immortal chainsaw weapon?"

"Yeah that's the story."

"How many stitches did you end up getting?"

"57 I think, and a few staples" Maka looked to me, to confirm it; I nodded in agreement but I think the number was 75. "Soul got some himself too; we were all pretty bruised up when it was all over, couldn't even chase that weird guy; Gopher to get the book back."

I chuckled a bit "I had to pretty much stop you from trying to go after him."

"It was important for him to not get the book." She frowned

"Well I'm sure you could have taken him when you were bleeding out." I rolled my eyes and shook my head "I can only imagine the kind of problem it would have been if you didn't pass out. They guy only had a hit out for you a while back surely fighting him right then would a great idea."

Kami frowned a bit, "Well you kill your enemies when you have the chance right?" so apparently she frowned more over me being against Maka fighting than me outright saying she was stupid to try while injured… at least that's how I'm taking it.

"I intend to, if I get to him first I guess."

"So how do missions for work Spartoi anyway?"

"Most are specially assigned missions that normal students don't have the ability to do or just aren't trusted to do. We're still free to pick up missions and Soul and I usually do since we get paid for them now, going to pick of as many as we can this month since kishin activity is so high."

"I would say so, with Asura's madness running loose and October being an already busy month. I've been looking into the possibility of abroad missions but good weapons are hard to find these days."

"At least I don't have to worry about that."

"Well no not now, but after all this Asura business is over there will be less kishin activity; have you thought about an area to be stationed at when you both go solo?"

Maka shook her head "Not considering it."

A good thing to hear.

"No?"

"Definitely not, there's still so much to do once the Kishin is gone; I hope to find Crona and it's not like I can skip town once Crona is back. Besides I still need to make Soul the strongest Death Scythe and we've still got a ways to go. Even when I'm done I wouldn't want to break up our partnership."

"But you could make so many more Death Scythes."

"I guess… but why make a bunch of great Scythes when I can make one completely amazing one that surpasses all others?"

"I guess that makes enough sense. You've got a long time to change your mind though; making the most powerful weapon ever will definitely take a while."

"Four years or less."

"Four?"

Maka nodded "Four years or less before Soul completely surpasses Papa as a Death Scythe."

Kami chuckled a bit "Really? You think you're that close Kitten?"

… Kitten.

I'm adding that to my list of nicknames to bother Maka with.

"Really."

"I'd love to see you in a serious fight. Pick a good mission this week if one isn't assigned to you I'll see to it that I accompany you."

The look on Maka's face was definitely one that said "challenge accepted", it had been a while since I saw her so bound and determined so I actually didn't mind going to the school early the next morning to see about a new mission. Maka remained overly excited over the prospect of her mother getting to see her work; but Maka has always hated being doubted and her mother didn't need to directly say she doubted her for her to figure out that she did.

"There is a mission I was already considering giving to you; I just didn't want to until all the details were worked out by intelligence." Shinigami-sama handed Maka an envelope, she opened it thumbing through its contents, information on our newest target.

"I'll go ahead and take it this weekend then."

"Are you sure you wouldn't want to wait until we can get a detail of who you're up against?"

"Positive. October's a busy month right? I've went into missions with less background."

"Very well then, I'm sure if Kami's around you'll have backup if you need it."

We had purposefully not mentioned Kami's tagging along because Maka's creepy father was in the room.

"Why do I never get invited on missions?"

Maka scoffed at his question; "Because you'll just flirt with the female kishin"

Aside from that Spirit always had a pretty much, front row seat to all of Maka's missions if he wasn't drunk off of his ass he could just ask to check it out in the mirrors of the Death Room.

In the afternoon Maka shoved the envelope at me before taking off to the class she'd been switched to, telling me something about reading up on our opponent since she wouldn't have time to tell me what she'd read. Apparently having to go from one teacher to another mid-semester means having to play catch up in the new class.

I ended up in Stein's room a little early, seriously considering a nap but deciding against it after Stein walked in and out of the room a few times carrying various items that were obviously for whatever dissection he'd planned for the day. Napping in the mostly empty classroom would just make me a target to get cut up so I started looking over the mission information since I had nothing better to do.

Well there was homework, but homework isn't cool at all.

Target: The Chessboard Killer (aka Alexander Yuryevich Pichushkin)  
Location: Russia, Moscow  
Crimes: Murdering, and devouring the souls of 60 victims  
Abilities: Is thought to use crude methods of fighting armed with a hammer – based on the testimony of 3 surviving victims. Mentally unstable.  
Appearance: Mostly human, dark hair and eyes, average build estimated 6 feet tall.  
Background: Is attempting to fill a chessboard with victims but has said that he won't stop once he's done with that much. Kills for control, "to feel godlike". No known contributing factors. Recently gained power from madness wavelengths suspected to work in close contact with the Kishin Asura.

It really didn't seem that different from most missions, even Stein; who had at some point been looking over my shoulder to read the mission contents only commented.

"Well that seems boring." He paused for a second smirking a bit "I doubt that'll prove any strength Maka has."

Seriously, can anything that goes on in and around the academy not be public news?

"I think she's jealous of her own child as laughable as that is."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sticking with Soul Eater-spirit the Chessboard Killer is based off of a real killer.


	3. Soul Perception Does Not Work Like A GPS

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A mission with Maka's mom leads to a tense moment of sorts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there is a very important note at the end of this chapter that I'll need everyone to read because there is an event that needs to be cleared up.
> 
> So please do read the ending notes!

Maka worked out the game plan for the mission so that we'd be back in Death City in time for classes on Monday morning. We'd leave Friday afternoon at three, arrive in Moscow around two PM on Saturday have a good twenty hours to locate and take care of the Kishin; leave Russia around eleven AM Sunday and be back in Death City around six at night giving us just enough time to report to Shinigami-sama for a debriefing.

When it comes to long flights; they're like instant anesthetic for me, for Maka not so much. She can easily spend a nine hour flight with her nose in a book or busy with battle plans; if she's not doing either of those things she'll get up from her seat multiple times or squirm around complaining of boredom and discomfort. The only refreshing thing about her mother's presence was her more reserved and almost cool behavior on the flight. I slept for a good ten uninterrupted hours; it didn't make up for the eight hours that were sacrificed to the gods of time change; but it was a nice plus.

Locating the kishin was going to be a hassle even with Maka using her soul perception; Moscow is heavily populated and our target apparently wasn't known for drawing elaborate amounts of attention to himself outside of when he was killing people.

"Notice anything special?" Maka hates when I interrupt her when she's trying to search for kishin using perception but five minutes of awkward silence and Kami texting away on her phone were more than enough time to make me not care.

"A few concerning wavelengths actually, but it's hard to say which ones are kishin and which ones are just sketchy people. Resonate with me really quick; maybe it'll help."

Whenever were not resonated (which is most of the time) it's hard to imagine that we can do it let along do it well; and obviously that works the opposite way when we are resonated and I find the fact that it ever seemed hard laughable.

"There's five that stick out, two in the north side of the city; one on the south side and two more in the east. Our target seems like a loner so we'll start with the southern part of the city."

Soul perception does not work like a GPS!

I repeat:

Soul perception does not work like a GPS!

Having Soul perception does not mean you know which streets don't have a dead end, where urban sprawl gets in the way of your path or even what buses to take. We've been to Moscow on missions before but it's not like we've ever had sightseeing time so naturally just getting to the southern side of the city took longer than what would have been preferred; three hours and another hour to track down the exact soul Maka mentioned earlier.

At least we quickly knew that this first soul wasn't that of our kishin's when the bullet spray happened.

It wasn't the first time we'd been fired on during a mission and obviously a Death Scythe is more than efficient at blocking bullets with no trouble at all.

"Well that was enough excitement for me for one afternoon." Kami was running her fingers through her hair having just let it down from its bun.

"and we've only narrowed it down to four souls" Maka had occupied herself with deciphering the bus schedule so that we could head to the northern part of the city and look for the kishin.

"Sadly so. Maka, I'm going to go get a hotel room nearby the airport; call me when you're sure you've got the kisin cornered so I can be around to see you polish it off."

The northern side of the city turned out to be a bust and naturally anything or anyone you're looking for is always in the last place you look; (an approach that could work with Crona perhaps?).

It was three AM before the kishin was cornered and Maka's mother was once again with us.

"I suspect you've got a battle plan?" Kami must either not sleep or she sleeps like a cat, I was surprised when she answered Maka's phone call and even more surprised at how quickly she met up with us.

"As much of a plan as I can for this."

The Chessboard Killer didn't look that tuff; he was more or less a man creeping around the park with a hammer at his side. The plan was to do some aerial attacks and end the fight as quickly as possible so that the kishin wouldn't know what hit him.

We were just within striking distance when the creep turned around and easily blocked our first attack.

"So that's why you've been following me around I was wondering when you'd show yourself."

Maka didn't hesitate to make quick jabs at him forcing him to move more making it hard for him to keep blocking. This went on for at least five minutes; the kishin didn't attack a single time, he just blocked. Maka jumped back halting her attack and putting distance between the kishin and hersel.

"He's got company!" we were taking to the air when Maka was not-so-gracefully hit from behind by a wavelength blast.

"Don't kill her! Just stop her I have to kill her the right way if I'm going to add her name to my chessboard."

She regained her footing fairly quickly after hitting the ground but at that point we were already surrounded by four other kishin. Where in the hell did they all come from? The lackey kishin weren't making any killing attacks just immobilizing ones; all of which Maka could easily block and counter. The series of attacking and blocking wasn't getting us very far battle-wise though we were gradually moving the fight to the streets.

"Maka go to your left!" I noticed it just in time, one more step and she would have fallen into an open manhole. The fight was starting to look somewhat like a crudely designed mouse trap.

We took up an aerial position and engaged soul resonance; using Witch Hunter we were able to knock out two of the four lackeys in one attack, another would end our issue of distractions and we could take out our original target.

"Maka!"And with her mother's call her attention went out the drain and our resonance shut down.

"Maka there's another four on their way you should fall back!"

Maka kept batting off the two lackeys from before "Their souls are just as weak."

We reengaged resonance and right after knocking out the two remaining lackeys the next four had arrived. They were just as weak as the ones before but we were taking them out twice as fast. Maka started squaring off with our original target again but only three blows in we had to stop again and take out another wave of four weak kishin.

At least I'd have a feast after this was all done; believe me I was heavily salivating at just the thought. Kid in a candy of kids; during the fifth wave of weak ass kishin a set of very familiar wavelength blasts came shooting out all four.

"Kidd what are you doing here?"

"Father sent me, this was a trap!"

Maka scoffed; twirling me around before attacking Chess-Killer-Guy "They really suck at it."

I could hear Patty's bubbling laughter as another wave of Kishin came in and were quickly taken down by Kidd. Needless to say Maka finished Chess-Guy off fairly quickly with Kidd helping cut down the distractions.

Maka sprawled out across a nearby bench and let out a yawn "Mmmm hurry up and nom' away Soul we've got enough time to grab a hotel room clean up and get some sleep in."

The total soul count for the lackeys was 32, and our initial target made 33. Kid went on to divide up the 12 souls he'd taken out between Liz and Patty and I was in the middle of gathering the 21 souls that were all mine and just waiting to be devoured when Kami reminded us all of her presence.

"Maka, what in the hell is wrong with you?"

She opened her mouth to speak but didn't seem able to form any words before her mother continued on.

"Do you really think it was smart to keep fighting since you didn't know you had back up on the way?"

"Well I-"

"You relied on being lucky. You can't be lucky forever. Why in the hell didn't you listen to me when I told you to fall back?"

"They were so weak it wasn't that big a deal; I'm glad Kidd showed up but Soul and I could have managed."

Kidd nodded "I am a bit annoyed that I won't be able to get in eight hours of sleep because of such little pests"

"I didn't ask for your two cents; god or not, you're still a child and a student. Maka I cannot believe you would be so brash, so idiotic; do you have any earthly idea how close you came to falling into that manhole?"

"It's really okay Soul warned me."

"It's absolutely not okay to relay on your weapon that heavily, I don't care if your resonance rate is three thousand and he's Excalibur-powerful."

"Even if I fell in we could have just flew. We've been in way more dangerous situations than that, I know my limits."

Slap

"Don't talk back to me. Just because I'm not around often doesn't mean you don't have to respect my authority."

I wasn't really sure what would be an appropriate way to act; it didn't sound like a hard slap, Maka looked fairly stunned and for a second I thought she might even cry but she managed to compose herself just enough to not respond. Irked or not it wasn't like I could lust punch my meister's overbearing mother.

I was irritated that Kidd picked right then of all times to have a mirror call going with his father but looking back it was a needed distraction.

"Hiya there Kiddo how'd everything go?"

A cry of "Maaaakaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" sounded; definitely Spirit but the sound of a reaper chop silenced him.

"Perfectly smooth father; got an even amount of souls for Liz and Patty as a perk. It was an easy battle I don't think I was actually needed here but I suppose my presence shaved some time off of the fight."

I never bothered asking Kidd; but I'm sure his "easy battle" comment was made to spite Kami to some extent, she didn't seem pleased.

"There was a similar incident with a lower-level student tonight as well; it seems that the weaker kishin are forming a pack mentality due to madness though I'm still surprised the Chessboard-Killer proved to be weaker than his reputation let on."

"Shinigami-sama, I'd like a word with my ex-husband please."

"Yes." Spirit popped back up giving Kami his full attention.

"Meet me Monday morning in the park nine o'clock sharp."

"I actually have to meet with Stein around-"

"Don't you dare put any meeting with him over a meeting with me."

"It's strictly business Kami."

"Nine o'clock."

He sighed "A-alright. Sure thing."

After a quick overly joyful farewell from Shinigami-sama the mirror call heaved a sigh and there was about a minute of awkward silence before she spoke again "Let's just go to the hotel, Kidd if you and your weapons don't have any way home right now I did book an extra room so the girls and I can take one and you and Soul can have the other."

She didn't really give anyone much of a choice in the matter and called a cab immediately after. I had to pretty much inhale the remaining souls before we were on our way to the hotel. Maka stayed quiet for most of the ride as did everyone else. It was the most awkward twenty minutes of my life.

We all had a good five hours to shower up and get a cat-nap before time to leave in the morning. Rooming with Kidd was too weird; and I really didn't sleep with his constant harping on symmetry… but it beat staying in the same room as Kami. I almost expected her to still be harping on the subject of Maka's fighting style by morning she was back to being herself, (or whatever that is) and merely made commentary on the morning paper and twisted aspects of Russian politics.

It wasn't until we were on the plane headed home that Liz opened her mouth to comment on Kami (during this time Kami went to take a piss break).

"I really can't stand her."

Maka was too busy staring out the window sulking to herself to hear Liz let along realize Liz was talking about Kami. Patty nodded in agreement with her sister and let her attention go back to the coloring book she was working on.

"I don't understand how a near trip could cause her to get so mad."

Maka zoning into the conversation at last, glanced at Kidd "She was just worried, mistakes in fights are kind of a big deal right? It wouldn't have hurt to be more careful."

"She was mostly mad because you didn't retreat, if you had retreated the kishin would have decided you were a very easy target. Then you would have been followed which could have led to collateral damage."

There wasn't any arguing with Kidd's statement; Maka had to know he was right but still she brushed it aside saying: "Still supposed to listen to parents."

Lucky for us she never listened to her father.

I knew better than to think the talk on the plane would be the end of it; after all half the time Maka has the self-esteem of an emo middle-school social pariah. When we got home she did exactly what I thought she'd do and locked herself in her room. It obviously didn't matter how many people; Sinigami-sama included, told her the mission went remarkably well she seemed more keen to believe her mom. I was too tired and hungry to play meister-psyche-damage-control when I was sure it wasn't going to work. Liz mentioned getting Tsubaki to talk to Maka and if Tsubaki couldn't help the situation then no one could. Either way Maka would bounce back she has a habit of working through her own problems usually involving no one else.

Another painfully early Monday morning dawned on me with another sweep of the mission board, this time Maka going for the most boring looking mission ever.

"Are you serious?"

She nodded "Yeah it's close to home and we can finish it in about six hours."

"More like six minutes; not that I don't mind an easy meal but c'mon Maka if we do this mission I'll fall asleep halfway through."

"Who's the meister here Soul?"

I rolled my eyes "Whatever; do what you want." It's not cool to complain about an easy meal after all.

My paperwork had finally been processed and I was moved to the class Maka had been switched to, the teacher was some old bat that harped on the importance of symbiosis in resonance. I never thought I'd miss watching Stein dissect some poor animal. She passed back some quiz mentioning that I'd have a week to prepare to take it meanwhile Maka sat pouting over a grade of B.

Tsubaki was quick to play damage control that afternoon, inviting Maka over for a study session and kicking Blackstar out meaning he came to the apartment to complain about how gods shouldn't have to be so bored. Maka came trotting home with a cup of Deathbucks coffee in hand looking like herself again and kicking Blackstar out saying she needed quiet so that she could study to recover her average. There was protesting, then books flying but eventually he'd happily started heading home when he realized that dinner would be waiting on was back to the new, October-style of normal by the next day along with not seeing home at any time during daylight hours. This tiring new rhythm wasn't going to grow on me anytime soon but I could say I was almost used to it. Maka was spazzing over the first test of her mother's class and her other grades in general but it wasn't that different from how she usually behaves. We were still taking the mission Maka had packed out on Monday; no sense withdrawing from it, it was slated to be an easy Saturday evening in Rhyolite. Having a mission below our skill level was pretty lame but having that mission in a ghost town was fairly cool.

I didn't pay attention to the details of the mission, some slashing and such happened but I was a little distracted by all the awesome modern art sculptures littering the area. I even practically begged Maka to give me just a half an hour to get pictures after the kishin was history. She had to agree since I had the keys to the motorcycle and actually know how to drive it. She sat around using the light from her cell phone to read one of her textbooks; on what is quite possibly the coolest ceramic couch sculpture I've ever seen… it was the only ceramic couch sculpture but no matter.

"Hurry up or I'm going to fall asleep on the way home."

"I just got to get a few of the couch, too bad about the shitty lighting definitely wasting a free day here sometime."

"The couch has a point at least; you've got to sit somewhere when your partner starts drooling over the other sculptures."

"If that was the intention it would be comfortable."

Maka's cell phone rang "It's papa"

"Don't answer it."

Of course she did anyway. I could hear him screeching her name in that annoying way.

"Yeah what do you want? No I haven't noticed anything strange nearby. We've been done about a half an hour. Sitting on this weird looking ceramic couch waiting on Soul to calm his inner hipster via sightseeing so we can leave.

I despise the hipster comment to this day.

"Why are you freaking out? Then stop making Mama mad. Did you seriously call me over this? I'm hanging up now Papa. Go sober up!" she shut the phone rather loudly and grumbled a bit about idiot men. This was my cue to start the bike so we could head spent home.

Maka Sunday hanging out with her mom; I was more than happy to stay home and sleep in. She said something about how her father was an idiot and her mother needed her to help demand Spirit give her back the suitcase he'd taken when we was drunk the night before. I could have asked why Kami would be anywhere near him especially when he was drunk but I didn't in week three of the most irritating busy uncool month ever we were called in for a Spartoi mission.

"So it's just a mission to gather intelligence?" Kim frowned "If that's the case then wouldn't it be easier with less of us going and not staying there for the next three days?"

"Under normal circumstances, yes. In this case I'm having you go as a group because if the town really has been taken hostage it could be a very dangerous situation. Stein is forming a plan right now you should all go prepare for the trip."

Maka shuffled through the apartment packing necessities into a small book bag "Do you think a band of kishin could really take a town hostage?"

I shrugged; we've seen crazier.

"I really hope we finish it quickly I don't know what I'll do if I get piled with make-up work."

"Tried to warn you when you decided to take up the extra class this month."

"Whatever Soul. I'll manage it."

Kami insisted on going if Stein was going to be anywhere near her child, of course having a class to teach meant she couldn't. It felt like a nice time to tell her that Maka spent more time around stein than she did other teachers but I decided not to.

Before nightfall we were all on our way to Carava Austria in a small stealth-plane listening to Blackstar complain to Kilik about wanting a candy-bar. Outside of Maka fervently doing homework the trip almost felt like a mini-vacation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IMPORTANT NOTE IS RIGHT HERE!
> 
> Kami's slap is NOT meant to portray Kami as abusive!
> 
> If you consider what happened to Blackstar when he tried to cheat on a test or if you're read Soul Eater Not and saw Sid chop Maka then you can kinda see the kind of things that are accepted as norms for academy students.
> 
> Plus I consider the abusive mother an overused fanfiction trope and Kami isn't Medusa you know.
> 
> Also fun stuff; the ghost town is based on a real place and ceramic couch exists.
> 
> I know the missions seem a little pointless but you'll understand the point once the story is over.


	4. Text 70 Times, Call 20 Times

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Professor Stein spearheads a Spartoi mission and has a strange plan to carry out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So many limitations with sticking to one point of view.

Before this mission began; If someone had told me that a team of elite Shibusen students would go on an undercover mission of some kind I wouldn't have been surprised. If someone had told me we might be posing as high school students, I wouldn't be shocked at all. If someone had told me we'd be voting on who the "most innocent looking girls" were; then I would have thought they were out of their fucking mind.

And yet, there we sat at a designated safe point, trying to decide who the most innocent looking girls of Spartoi were. There aren't many words to describe how fucked up this was when Stein and Marie said this was our first priority.

"It's Kim! She's perfect and lovely!" And Kim started assaulting Ox because he was causing a scene, yeah that's innocent.

"Tsubaki is fairly innocent." Marie's suggestion was met with Liz's laughter

"Oh yeah! Really innocent I should fill you in on the Book of Eibon sometime!"

"It was almost you ya know." Tsubaki was pouting a bit at this point

"Patty can do it."

"No Liz! If Patty goes, and you stay we won't be symmetrical!"

"We're not even fighting at this point Kidd!"

"But it's Patty!" Kidd had a good argument against Liz, Patty had excused herself from the conversation in favor chasing Kilik's weapons around pretending to be a monster.

"Maka looks innocent too ya know."

"No I don't!"

"Because pigtails are so menacing?" I don't think I should have been hit for just agreeing with Kidd.

After much more bickering we all decided that Kilik's weapons were too young, Patty was too wild, Tsubaki was too mature looking, Liz was too afraid and too mature looking, and the only girls we could easily send would be Kim, Jackie and Maka.

Stein is some kind of closet pervert, I swear. How else would he and Spirit have even been partners? That man, not only did he seem to already figure out what he had us wasting time to figure out but he had outfits already made for the three, outfits that fit Okay let's be fair here, he is a doctor, he has had to see Kim, Jackie and Maka on separate occasions which have included everything from handing them icepacks to stitches so maybe he might be able to guess their sizes. He also has access to all their personal records so maybe Stein isn't a total perv' for being able to have outfits that fit.

And I take it back, I'm sorry but no the man is a pervert just like Spirit, he just hides it better.

He put them in catholic school girl uniforms. Not normal modern uniforms but the kind with the tiny miniskirts, plain flats, knee high wool socks button up shirt and blazers.

There is a fucking difference between the Halloween costume / Brittney Spears sexy look for the Catholic school girl uniform and what they actually wear. How do I know this? Because I am a man damn it, and we know these things! Okay so maybe I'm taking it a little too far by describing it as a Brittany Spears look but it definitely didn't look legit. The uniforms really didn't cover much more than the Spartoi uniforms but the Spartoi uniforms just do not carry the same implications.

"This is never going to work."

"Kim! You look amazing!" Ox was hit again short after this statement. Why are women so damn abusive?

"Even more proof that it isn't going to work. I better get extra pay for this mission; I look like a damn porn star."

"Professor is there even a catholic school in this area?" I don't know if I have ever seen Maka's face so red, I would have laughed if I thought I could get away with laughing.

"There probably is."

"And to think I was going to try talking Mama into letting me back into your class or filing an appeal once she left."

The plan was fairly simple; the girls would go into the city together act like normal innocent girls and do girly things such as shopping. While they did this Maka would use her soul perception to look for Kishin in the area and Kim and Jackie would check to see if they could get anyone to speak about kishin-related problems. If anything went wrong Kim had Jackie at her disposal and they could stall long enough for Maka to escape and then they'd follow her out.

Of course after the girls were gone for two hours instead of the one hour maximum we'd given them we knew there was some kind of problem. None of the three were answering their cell phones and Ox was getting anxious. I stayed cool because that's what cool guys do. Yep; they absolutely do not text their meisters 70 times and call 20 times and no matter how defective Maka's phone must be to say that happened I am here to say that it didn't happen. Also Blakstar is a liar because he knows I was just playing on my Draw Something app and not texting.

Do not believe anything he says!

Stein reported in to Shinigami and got the go ahead for us to all enter the city; since something must have went wrong our cover was already blown so at this point it couldn't hurt to just walk in.

"Soul I think you should stay back here to call for reinforcements in case we don't make it back."

How insulting. I didn't care that I was shooting Stein a dirty look "Are you seriously telling me not to go after my meister?"

Was he seriously saying that I'm going to be useless without Maka? I mean I'm not that effective at fighting without her but I can throw some punches and if I don't go in and there's a fight what the hell is Maka supposed to do besides get herself hurt?

The nutty doctor sighed "Figured you wouldn't listen… worth a try I guess. Let's go."

We walked in as a group with no weapons at the ready, if we were wrong about the city coming in wielding weapons might not be too smart.

Of course we weren't wrong and upon entering the town we noticed how no home even had lights on, it's was only eight PM; there was no way people were all sleeping that early.

"This place is simply crawling with Kishin." Stein almost looked amused, I'm sure he really was.

"You should have just sent me in instead of those girls and we wouldn't be playing rescue mission right now"

"No we'd just be footing the bills to repair a city."

"Tch! And they'd be grateful!"

This banter between Stein and Blackstar went on for a bit before the sound of breaking glass made them stop.

"That must be the girls, let's not keep them waiting."

Maka and Kim were tag teaming a few kishin using Jackie, tossing her back and forth; it mostly just made it impossible for Kim to engage Jackie in resonance or to fight seriously but given the nature of the situation Maka needed some weapon to help protect herself. Judging by how worn out Kim and Maka looked the fight must have been going back and forth for a while or they had fought a few Kishin before.

Our resonance was shaky due to Maka having to adjust her wavelength to match Jackie's, not that it mattered since Spartoi with Stein and Marie meant easily taking down one kishin after another with ease.

"Hey Soul, carry me." Gotta love Maka's way of thanking us all for jumping to their rescue or her explanation of how things went wrong. Just order your Death Scythe to carry you around because you're too lazy to walk. Way to go; this is why you have fat ankles.

If I think these things I won't say them and if I don't say them she can't hit me.

"So what's the story here?"

Kim would be the one to explain things to Stein

"Well we came into the city and noticed how empty it seemed, Maka used her soul perception and was able to notice fifty souls that we were fairly sure were kishin of course we needed conformation and we needed to see if we could find out what happened to all the citizens we were checking out a super market when we got ambushed I was doing find with that and able to peel off one no problem but once we were out and on our way back to all of you we got attacked by more than one so Maka and I tossed Jackie back and forth and well you know the rest." Kim went back to greedily chugging the water she'd snatched from Ox

"Couldn't one of you have returned a single phone call?" My question was more directed at Maka.

"We hardly had time to do that and besides my phone got smashed."

I was kinda glad her phone was broken, she wouldn't be able to see the barrage of texts and her parents couldn't call us; both great things.

"Ox was just irritating me when I was trying to fight so I fed my phone to a kishin."

And then Stein just had to speak up "I figured it would be like this."

"You knew and you still had them go in?" Ox tends to forget that Kim can kick his ass most days and he always goes into some clingy pseudo-macho mode

"And in these outfits?" Leave it to Jackie to remember the important things.

"I had a point to prove and needed to make it look like a legitimate plan."

What the hell was he even talking about?

Even with the town cleaned of kishin our orders were to stay put until another team came in to take over to gather evidence and find out what caused the town to be a target in the first place. Liz looked like she was going to die when Stein announced that we'd have to stay. We settled into the town courthouse deciding staying in someone's abandoned home would be too weird and the courthouse was the biggest building around anyway. We were originally geared to camp so we basically ended up camping under a roof, tents included. Apparently women like privacy but don't like going a down a hall and to the left away from everyone else to get privacy; Liz said it was "too freaky".

Even with the kishin from earlier all turned into nice little soul-meals we couldn't just assume the area was safe. We arranged a look-out schedule that was modified after Kim declared she was too tired from the scuffle earlier. Putting Kim Maka or Jackie as guard would just result in one of them passing out. Of course Maka insisted she was totally fine with it but it's not like 10 other people not including Kilik's weapons, couldn't guard just as easily, (it would have been 11 but Liz as night guard could only count as half a person).

I was unfortunate enough to have to stand guard second which meant there was no sense in trying to sleep considering my shift started at Midnight and ended at 1 AM. Blackstar insisted on going first and the sheer joy of waking up Kid "symmetrically"was all on me. Or possibly not as Maka had stayed up reading from her textbook.

"Hey Soul." She had scooted near me in order for me to hear her whispers

"hmm?"

"What time do you think it is back in Death City?"

"We're about nine hours ahead so four in the afternoon."

"Oh" She rolled over on to her stomach reading away making little sighs every so often until I took the hint

"You know if you wanted to borrow my phone to call your mom all you had to do was ask. I never use up my roaming minutes anyway."

"Thanks Soul."

She tip toed away towards the door as to not wake up anyone else with her chattering

"Hi Mama… I'm on Soul's phone mine got smashed. Yeah I'm okay just a little tired from having to sync up with Jackie. Oh, I didn't realize Professor Stein already reported in. Yeah it's surprising that Blackstar isn't all talk isn't it? Ah yeah about to read over the chapter, so I'll just add that in. Love you; bye."

"That was fast."

She nodded "Yeah she has a meeting or something like that. We've got a written assignment to hand in when we get home" She pulled a notebook out from her stuff and scribbled something down.

"You're not about to work on it now are you?"

"Just jotting down ideas, it's an essay on the signs of a negative resonance."

"So why are you still awake?"

She looked at me like it was a stupid question before answering "Gotta make sure I keep up in all my classes; mission or no mission. The extra week of makeup time is fine but if I do that everything will pile up and I'd hate doing twice my usual workload for a week."

"It can wait till morning ya know."

Of course she never listens to me so I don't know why I bothered.

Naturally right after my watch shift ended and I was started to sleep fairly well, Maka tossed her book aside.

"Kidd did you notice that wavelength?"

"Yeah not good. let's get everybody up."

I groaned and sat up "Fuck my life."

And swarms of pathetic kishin happened.

Until the next morning.

And just for anyone who might not think it's possible; a weapon can totally sprain a wrist while in weapon mode. It's just not one of those things that's automatically noticed until out of weapon mode when the swelling is visible. I'm not even sure if it happened when Maka pole-vaulted to kick one of the kishin in the face or if it was when she had to slice in an upwards motion and my blade got caught on the kishin's rib. Of course I still got yelled at for not telling her.

If we hadn't excused ourselves to the outdoors to argue I imagine the echoing of our yelling would have cause Stein to scalpel us a few dozen times.  
"How could you have not known?"

"It's just a sprain woman."

"That's not the point."

"Well it should be the point."

"Well it's not!"

"Then what the hell is the point Maka?" It's not like my head wasn't already pounding from no sleep and too many tedious fights; obviously a screaming match would help it!

"You always do stuff like this! What if a powerful kishin had attacked? A screw up like this could have really caused a problem."

"It's a fucking sprained wrist Maka, it's not a damn screw up. We have fought with a lot worse than sprained wrists so I know and you know that that is not an issue that is going to mess with us."

"It could have!"

At this point I was so sick of yelling and I just wanted to go lay down like pretty much everyone else had taken the privilege of doing. So I did what any guy in my position would do. I sat my ass on the ground and decided to get to the bottom of the matter.

"What the hell is your actual problem Maka? You've been acting like a fucking spazz all month, are you on an extended period?"

"No you jackass! I've just noticed that we have a lot of work to do if you're going to be the best death scythe ever."

"You've always known and noticed shit like that. This argument is not about that and you know it isn't."

"Oh really? If you're so smart you tell me what it's about Soul."

"It's about your insane need of constant approval from that woman who obviously dislikes me. Do you think a flawless mission is going to make her suddenly approve? She doesn't even bother to visit you until she has business in Death City and even then she's hung out with you how many times?"

"It's not her fault she's busy! She's never said she doesn't like you and I don't have a constant need of her approval!"

"Oh so then please explain to me why you've been willing to stress yourself out all month and do whatever the hell she's wanted you to do?"

"You don't get it."

The door swung open and Marie stepped out "I think you both need to drop this and get some sleep while you can in case we need to fight more kishin."

I would have been out of my damn mind to not be okay with this plan.

I woke up close to sunset, one of the last people to wake up in fact but no other disturbances had happened during the day so there was at least that much to be glad for. Needless to say Maka wasn't talking to me and was back to her hardcore studying fully equipped with note cards. I grudgingly looked over some school related stuff when she shoved a textbook in my direction, of course I was happy to let Blackstar distract me with a game of poker in which Kid really sucked and Stein kicked all of our asses. Liz spent her time doing nails for Kim, Jackie, Tsubaki and even Miss Marie… Patty was actually the only girl to play any poker and her skills almost matched Stein's which was too freaky.

Maka poked me on the shoulder after a few hours of card games meekly asking if she could borrow my phone to call her mom. I let her borrow it of course but instantly regretted it because right after the call she was back to scribbling down more note cards.

After another restless night the take-over team had finally arrived and we were sent home (It was Friday afternoon when we got home so we'd missed all of our classes). Maka insisted that she and I go pick up another mission for the weekend, something close to home this time, this led to us getting 2 missions for the weekend, both in Detroit. Nothing worth mentioning happened that weekend, my wrist still hurt like hell but that's what Advil is for. We didn't get back to Death City until four AM Monday morning, just in time to mourn the fact that we simply weren't going to get any sleep. Maka kept mentioning that the month would be over in a week and a half as she hastily scribbled at her homework while downing a bowl of dry cereal (we haven't bought groceries in a week at this point and were out of milk, eggs, bread, butter, paper towels, and on our last roll of toilet paper.)

"Gotta' go to the grocery store on the way home today." She let out a yawn as she settled behind me on the bike which only made me have to yawn too because yawns are magically contagious.

"Yeah, got the list right?" She usually gets mad if we don't have a list to shop with because she says we'll buy a lot of stuff we don't need.

"No, we're out of everything so I didn't bother." She was using my shoulder as a pillow and I'm sure she would have fallen asleep and got tossed off the bike had I not given the engine a few extra revs on the way to the academy.

Naturally, that day just drug on and on, and between Blackstar's loud ass mouth. Kid's symmetry sobbing, Patty's damn giggle fits, that new teacher's rant on using the wrong kind of paper for reports and Maka's constant visits to her mother's temporary office in hopes of seeing her (of course she wasn't in the office once) I am amazed that I didn't hit a new level of insanity making black-blood look like child's play.

After the last class of the day we were once again standing outside of her mother's office and it was still locked with the lights off.

"Why can't you just call her? We have to buy groceries and I didn't even get to nap at lunch so we need to go do this so I won't fall asleep while driving."

"I need to ask her something really important; I can't ask her over the phone."

"Maka…"

"Soul, please? Let me just check the terrace and then we'll go okay?"

I sighed "Fine make it quick."

I'm pretty sure I dozed off waiting for Maka to get back from the terrace but of course Maka came trotting back not long after waking me up. She looked fairly disappointed and her walking pace had sped up considerable faster than it had been all day.

"Something wrong?"

"Everything is fine. I don't even care. Let's just go buy groceries and go home."

I didn't expect her to cook when we got home, I was more tired than hungry and expected her to feel about the same but she had an amazing burst of almost angry energy and woke me up a few hours later to eat some amazing ass garlic chicken thing that she was viciously stabbing at with her knife she ate half of it before announcing that she was going to bed and she'd take care of the dishes in the morning.

After I finished eating I was just about to go to bed myself when Blair came skipping into the house with Spirit creeping in behind her.

"I brought someone over hope it's okay." She chirped before changing into her cat-form and making herself comfortable on the kitchen counter.

"Maka's in bed, what do you want?"

Spirit tugged a chair from under the kitchen table and rested his head on his arms.

"Fuck. Needed to talk to her, any way I can talk you into waking her up?"

I almost laughed "Hell no, even if she hadn't been exhausted before she went to bed I'd send you to do that; I value my life."

He sighed; "Figured as much. Guess I'll just pull her from a morning class or something. She tell you what was up?"

"No, but she looked and acted pretty pissed."

"Well if she didn't tell you then I shouldn't bother. Anyway you look like shit go sleep or shower or something." Spirit left it at that before walking back out the door. Blair sighed

"Nya, geeze work has never been so much work. Calling it a night too." She bounced off the counter and scurried off to Maka's room.

What in the hell was going on?


	5. Titless Wonder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Soul attempts to make Maka talk, even if it's a major hassle and it means her mom catches the wrong end of an argument.

I spent Tuesday morning trying to get Maka to tell me what the hell was up but nothing was working. She kept insisting nothing was wrong, that her father was probably just making a drunken house call, and threatening to beat the hell out of me if I didn't stop "annoying" her. If her father did pull her from a morning class then it was one of the few we didn't have together. Something was definitely up, and while I could always grab a hat, pipe and recruit Blackstar to be Watson, playing detective wouldn't be necessary, Maka was my meister; I knew her better than anyone else and I had ways of making her talk.

When sweet talking and guilt tripping failed a screaming match at our lockers seemed like the best idea.

"You're the one acting weird Soul!"

"Okay Titless Wonder, do elaborate on how I'm the one acting weird."

"You keep asking me stupid stuff. God you're an asshole!"

"I just called you titless and you didn't even hit me. What the hell?"

"Are you some kind of screwed up masochist that wants to get hit?"

"No! You just usually do so it's weird when you don't."

"I just don't feel like messing up my book right now."

I rolled my eyes and slammed my locker "You'd think my meister of all people could tell me shit."

But Maka's attention was on the person standing behind me, I turned around and was face-to-face with none other than Kami.

Just lovely.

She didn't look cheery in the least bit, in fact she actually looked a little more like Maka when she was angry.

"I was just stopping by," she paused glancing from Maka and back to me "To have a word with my daughter. But clearly she's not the one I need to talk with."

"Mama." Maka's voice was almost threatening; I'd be lying if I said I didn't almost smirk at her challenging tone.

"Maka."

And thus began an awkward silent standoff that didn't end until Kami cleared her throat.

"You have class soon, don't be late it's bad for your grades."

Maka glanced back at me almost nervously "I… right." She gently closed her locker sparing me another glance before walking off. I was about to go my own way as well when her mother's hand clasped my shoulder.

I was tempted to yell "I need an adult". Of course I didn't yell, but it was a thought.

She didn't say anything so we just stood there until the hall cleared, I was about to just ask what the hell her problem was when she finally spoke as if reading my mind for the question.

"You're a problem Evans. What's it going to take to get you to dissolve your partnership with my daughter?"

Just great this would mean she'd most likely been snooping in my personal files, you'd think after a witch-nurse was doing similar stuff that those things would be locked up better.

"You want me to ditch Maka?" It wasn't like I couldn't understand what she'd said but I wanted to see if she could tell how idiotic what she'd just said was.

"Black Blood."

"What about it?"

"I don't want her around it."

"She can't get it, her anti-demon wavelength takes care of that just ask Professor Stein, or even ask Maka."

"That's not my only issue. You're trouble in general. What made it okay for you to speak to my daughter like that just now?"

"That's how we communicate. I'd been wondering what pissed her off so bad yesterday; she went looking for you and came back in a shitty mood. Safe to assume she wasn't okay with your request?"

"We're not here to discuss yesterday. It was another matter entirely and none of your business."

"Anything that's upset my meister so bad is my business."

"Stop acting like such a good weapon, loitering around in the desert after a mission when there's a hit out on her." I was starting to understand just why Spirit had called us that night, it wasn't just to complain to Maka about anything Kami had said to him.

"You mean at the ghost town? You should know that when Gopher attacked us we were a lot closer to the city than we were that night and that Maka knew he was near before he showed himself. She has soul perception remember?"

"I know the scope of my daughter's abilities."

"I think Spirit knows better than you do, seeing that he's actually around and all."

"You don't even have a right to say anything about-"

"Kami I'd appreciate it if you let one of our top weapons attend his class."

Spirit to the rescue, with a hall pass too; under normal circumstances; never thought I'd see the day. I'd have taken advantage of a free hall pass and spent most of my class walking around aimlessly.

"Go to class Soul, I've got this. Tell Maka I said hello by the way."

At least I had a vague understanding of what happened the day before, but it definitely didn't make Resynching any less awkward and if anything Maka was just acting weirder than before.

She wasn't actually considering breaking off our partnership was she?

She was more eager to leave campus than normal that night, not even bothering to hang back after her mom's class was over and she even spent the ride home straight up bitching about her homework load as her mom had decided to add to it by assigning everyone reading for a "pop quiz".

"Can we just like, live off of Pizza and take out the next week and a half? Kidd needs help setting up the Halloween party at the academy and I'd feel horrible if everyone else in Spartoi was there to help but us."

A non-mission excuse to make contact with our friends during the month of October? What in the hell was the world coming to? There must have been a snow storm on the way!

"I do love both of those things equally, I mean as long as we get a variety of pizzas and different take out things it sounds like plan to me. We'll just eat straight from boxes and avoid having do dishes too. Or we can just try bumming food from Kidd's place; Liz says those cooks are amazing."

She chuckled, highlighting notes and munching on the cheese and crackers that she had dubbed dinner "I can always tell Miss Marie we blew our allowance, you know she'd send us food before she even brought up the idea of doing work-study." Notice how Marie would be the first one to ask.

"Nah, we'll live on pizza and take-out, you wouldn't have time to cook if you wanted to and you know if I cook too many nights in a row we're both going to end up getting sick."

She closed her notebook and tossed it gently onto the coffee table. "So anyway, I'm curious; how ticked off was my mama with you over the Titless Wonder comment?"

"She chewed me out over stuff but hardly mentioned that."

"Oh," she nibbled at her lower lip and hesitated for a second "So what did she say?"

"Yeah I have a feeling she's been through my student records, unless you mentioned black blood to her."

"I haven't had the time to get into that with her and after Russia I decided it best not to say anything."

"I just don't think she really likes me in general; pretty easy to tell."

"I guess it's because you're a boy? She'll have to get over it or something."

"Safe to assume the stuff she was ticked at me for today had something to do with whatever happened yesterday?"

"Well probably not really, Papa came and apologized this morning."

"Him? Geeze I haven't seen you so ticked off because of him in a while."

"Him and Mama were sucking face on the terrace."

And now stuff made sense, a little anyway. Maka probably knew for some time that her mother didn't like her choice in weapon, after our argument in Austria she probably wanted to confront Kami to verify things and she must have walked in on the Kami Spirit make out session.

"Can't believe her. Why's she so worried about us being partners when she can't even be home for one stupid month without crawling back to my stupid cheating papa?"

A potential answer could have been that she's worried about her daughter. Of course Maka was smart enough to know that.

"She's supposed to be better than this. I'm so fucking disappointed, I've always wanted to be like her and not just a great meister but someone who has enough courage to burn whatever bridges they want to burn."

There's really not much that can be said to someone when they realize that a person they've viewed as infallible has just as many hang ups as the rest of us. There was even less I could say to Maka that wouldn't be just telling her I thought her mom was a total bitch. So I kept my mouth shut and that was probably the best thing I could do.

The next two days were uneventful outside of Maka cramming and us eating way too much junk food. Our last October mission was that weekend then one final class of Resynching with the practical demonstration and the most uncool month ever would end with the Halloween party at the academy. While you'd think watching her mother suck face with the man she's supposed to be better than would make Maka less willing to go above and beyond, or even that Maka's talk about being disappointed would mean some action on her end.

It didn't.

She spent class Thursday using every chance to display her physical and mental strengths when we did practice practicals. Her mother happened to be around to see the students sparring Friday at P.E. and Maka picked Patty of all people to spar with.

Let's compare the fighting styles of Maka and Patty for a second.

Maka's a very effective fighter when it comes to hand-to-hand combat; her major strengths come from her ability to make strong high kicks, direct even punches and keep a solid stance. It also doesn't hurt that she can scurry around her opponents like a freaking jack rabbit.

Patty is completely different, she fights in a random, wobbly way that somehow works extraordinarily well for her she's beat Blackstar in hand-to-hand fights before… well she kicked him in the nuts but she could have probably won without going that far. I have never seen Maka win a physical fight with Blackstar and while it could be because she hasn't kicked him in the nuts to win one it could also be that Patty is somehow the better fighter of the two in spite of acting on pure instinct and randomness. I wouldn't know who to place my bets on between Maka and Patty.

Their sparring session started out in a totally standard way, circling one another to sweep for openings. Patty went for the first blow just a punch, nothing Maka couldn't easily predict or block. Maka's counter attack was to kick Patty in the stomach and use the time Patty would need to catch her breath to try sweeping her leg under Patty's to knock her off her feet. Patty however, apparently doesn't need to catch her breath after a kick to the stomach; she quickly countered Maka's kick with a kick of her own that Maka wasn't able to block. Patty was wild and unpredictable as ever I was pretty surprised to see Maka able to keep up with her, neither girl had the upper hand yet, it was still anybody's match.

I didn't realize it right away, but Liz did.

"Patty's throwing the fight." Liz couldn't have looked more proud of Patty than at that moment, Kidd was even smiling at his weapon's antics.

Patty's smile told Spartoi more about the match than anyone else would know. To anyone else Patty was just being Patty, fighting like a wild maniac but we could see the slight hesitation of a block that led to Maka body slamming her, and the smirk afterwards also told us it was intentional.

Her mom's surprised face was priceless.

We had a Saturday mission in North Carolina of all places, going after an old combatant of Arachne's. It turned out to be our 'cleanest' mission of the month neither of us even so much as lost a hair during our battle with the deranged monster. We even got home at an OK time on Sunday but Maka made sure we filled our free time with preparing for her mom's final exam.

We could always Resynch before the class, but Maka wanted to make sure it was completely by the book. While studying is uncool; a part of me was okay with studying if it meant somewhat sticking it to her mom. I'm fairly sure Maka didn't want to stick it to her mom, if anything she was still looking to impress her.

I don't even remember Monday because I spent most of the day sleeping in my classes and I even dozed off at lunch of all times. I'm pretty sure I bombed a test which means when Maka finds out I'm going to have to listen to her tell me how badly it reflects on a Death Scythe to fail tests but oh well. Since Maka volunteered us to help set up for the Halloween Party we didn't even manage to get home until nearly ten.

And we came home to a messy kitchen.

Blair tried to bake a cake without magic, she thought Maka and I would enjoy something that wasn't fast food. Fair enough I suppose.

Cake batter splattered on the ceiling, more than kinda sucked to clean up.

Cleaning for two hours, Maka taking the time to show Blair the proper way to bake a cake without magic, frosting the cake, and then eating the cake led to us not getting to bed until around two in the morning. I do like cake, and the cake was pretty amazing but I am still unsure if any cake is worth losing even more sleep, especially the night before an exam that Maka is freaking out over. I kept asking Maka if the cake whim was only because she was too nervous to sleep but she kept saying it wasn't and for me to stop joking around and teasing her about it.

It was actually a serious question, but whatever.

"Alright then that's all I've got to say let's get the practicals going. Any volunteers?"

Maka usually was a first to volunteer us for stuff like this in any class, slightly annoying there was always the advantage of getting stuff over with.

But not this time.

We ended up going last.

Going last means you'd better be the best because you're the one that's probably going to be remembered best. Not that it was a lot of pressure seeing as we knew how to resynch long before the class; it was just an interesting change in behavior.

To say our performance was anything but flawless would have been an understatement.

"Such an amazing improvement, I'm impressed."

Was that supposed to be some kind of complement? The look on Maka's face said yes.

We we're dismissed once everyone finished the written test but Kami called Maka back

"It'll only be a sec' go pull the bike around I don't really like walking that far, too tired from late night cake baking."

It's not like she was the only one up that late and the only one who had to get up early and spend all day on campus.

I was tempted to hang back for a bit and listen in but I remembered Maka's soul perception and decided I liked not having new dents in my skull. Besides, it's not cool to be nosey.

At least this time she came back in a good mood. Over a shopping proposition of all things; I doubt she'd have been so overjoyed at the idea of shopping with anyone but her mom.

"What happened to not wanting to spend money and already having something that would work?"

She shrugged "Mama offered."

"The day of is cutting it kinda late, should I still call a cab tomorrow night?"

Maka refuses to ride the bike in a dress, for some reason miniskirts are deemed as fine though.

"I'm getting ready at Mama's place so I'll just meet up with you there, might change before heading home but I've got clothes in my P.E. locker."

Allow to explain Halloween activities when you fight monsters and such for a living.

As you know by now, October is a busy month when it comes to activity of Kishin and witches; this is partly why most people started celebrating Halloween. Meisters and weapons celebrate Halloween because it's the end of a month of working their asses off. Costumes aren't a thing many people in Death City bother with, I mean when you've seen the real deals even great costumes are laughable; actually even great movie special effect are; that's a little depressing. Students and staff of the academy wind down at the end of each October by having the largest party- only trumped by the founding party.

Little kids still dress up and trick-or-treat but the costumes definitely aren't typical ghosts and witches and while they do get candy a lot of their treats are pocket change, healthier snacks, stickers and I've heard Maka mention coupons. It's lame but understandable to some extent; would you really expect adults to allow the next generation of meisters and weapons to get obese or possibly get killed with razor-blade candy?

I really, really hate big parties; parties with friends are one thing but parties with hundreds of people you don't even know are just lame. Besides anyone who's ever been to any kind of school function (even at normal schools) knows that parties and dances always end with like thirty girls crying, six or seven cat-fights, a few adults making disturbing p.d.a.s, about forty breaks up, seventy hook-ups and about ten guys punching the shit out of each other; let's not even get into spiked punch incidents. Yet at the start of every party you can tell that everyone for some reason thinks it's going to be this big amazing night and they'll have the time of their lives.

Last year I played hookey to get out of it, successfully I might add; I'm a great fake-sneezer.

Having the status of Death Scythe and being a member of Spartoi meant I'd really have no choice but to go. Maka cited it as a status thing and was fairly convincing telling me: "Someone has to go behave like a proper Death Scythe because Papa isn't going to." Those obligations aside I couldn't have Kami sneering about her daughter having an anti-social partner and it didn't seem like the best idea to stay home if Maka was going.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've always considered Spirit to be the kind of parent that takes responsibility for his and Kami's actions and I've always considered Maka to be highly independent; she's not going to go running for help or complaining at the first hint of stuff going wrong. I actually did write a tie-in One-Shot with Spirit and Kami and I'll post that soon.  
> Next chapter is the last.


	6. Spiked Punch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because it's not a party until the party checklist is complete.

So remember how I mentioned that at every school-related party thirty girls end up crying?

Yeah let's back up a second so I can explain the last god awful day of a shitty month.

For one thing, I slept until past noon; that much was really nice. Maka had left out sometime before then to go shopping with her mom, but this meant…

"Rise and shine Soul-y!"

Boobies… I mean, Blair.

"Go away, I'm sleeping."

"That's no fun! C'mon play with Blair it's a holiday ya' know!"

"No." Under the covers I retreated, and they were gone shortly after because Blair has magic on her side.

Maka not being home meant I didn't get hit; not getting hit meant that nothing could distract Blair away from me which meant she spent an hour chasing me around rubbing her naked- stuff all over me, making my damn nose bleed. I only escaped her because Tsubaki showed up to borrow Maka's curling iron and Blair decided to follow her in hopes of playing hair stylist.

Getting all dressed up really was a pain in the ass, but I should admit riding my bike in a suit had to look even cooler than it felt. Of course I didn't dare show up to the party early; I waited so I was fashionably late by about half an hour. Late enough to see Kami angrily storming down the academy steps; about what; well there was no telling.

Just another party at the academy, Kid wasn't playing door greeter which I had to admit was somewhat refreshing as he usually spent an hour gaping at any guests that weren't symmetrical. I ran into Harver before seeing any other Spartoi members and killed a good ten minutes chatting with him and some random friend of his about guitar chords before Tsubaki showed up with Blackstar.

"Is Maka around anywhere?"

"She's got to be around here somewhere; she was supposed to head over with her mom and I saw Kami when I was on my way in."

"Her mom and Miss Marie are on the stairs out front arguing, I was hoping she'd be with you rather than around that." And it was time to go fine my meister.

But wait it's party checklist time!

The following elements are required for any and all school-related parties:

1\. Girls crying  
2\. Cat fights  
3\. Adult P.D.A.s  
4\. Break ups  
5\. Hook ups  
6\. Guys punching each other  
7\. Spiked punch

Given that they're both grown women, I'd say an argument on the stairs out front counts as a cat fight.

It made sense to check that area first since the main concern was Maka not getting involved so it's not like I was just going out to watch the verbal bloodbath.

"And that's not your business Mjolnir."

"But telling you that you're a bitch is my business."

I hope Marie realizes that cussing out Kami in front of a small pack of curious students means she can never say anything to us about cussing. I'd like to mention that she was holding a cup of punch so a logical person might suspect that it had already been spiked.

"You don't even know what you're talking about."

"Yes I do.

I went back to looking for Maka, as interesting as it could have been to watch the two fight it out I figured it wasn't that important, Kami just probably said something against Stein. I circled the giant ball room a few times and didn't see Maka, I noticed Spirit and he actually looked sober, I was about to be desperate enough to ask him to locate her for me when Kim popped up.

"What did you do to Maka?"

Why the hell does everyone assume that when she's upset?

"I haven't even spoken to her since last night."

"What did you two fight about?"

"We didn't she just left this morning to go shopping with her mom before I woke up we didn't even ride here together."

"Oh, well I just saw her in the courtyard moping and Kidd was trying to talk to her but it's Kidd so you know it won't help much."

When I got outside Maka was right where Kim said she'd be with Kidd sitting on the opposite side of the bench. Maybe he had been standing at the door but thought to coerce Maka into being away from the giant scene Marie and Kami were causing. Maybe that was thinking too much into it. Probably not that important.

"Ah Soul." He froze for a second with a serious look on his face and for one really awkward moment I wanted to ask if I was interrupting something. "You would be so symmetrical if you'd just fix your hair."

Typical Kid.

I rolled my eyes "Yeah, no."

He stood up, carefully taking care of any wrinkles that could have made their way into his clothing while he was sitting. "So disappointing." His back was turned to Maka so she didn't see him mouth "You got this?" to me; I just nodded in response and leaned against the side of the bench that Maka occupied.

"You know you're totally talking my thing from me."

"Do what?"

"My party thing, the thing where I'm the broody one."

"Oh." She was quiet aside from a small sigh

"So you gonna' talk or something? I don't think you'd want me to bring you a plate of raw fish."

She shrugged; I had to glance around to make sure no one was around so my man-card would be preserved.

So what is it about hugs that make upset people cry? It's not supposed to work like that. Like I said earlier, girls always end up crying at parties; just not girls like Maka who don't have romance issues, toss themselves off of bridges when fighting immortal werewolves, willingly use black blood to face off against enemies, go after the wavelength that they notice as threatening rather than going away from it. Maka is not the crying type, I've seen her legitimately cry maybe a total of five times since we became partners and only once or twice can I say that the reason was stupid. If Maka's crying there's usually something very wrong.

Also this was on my check list so technically 3 out of 7 at this point, 2 and a half if you want to be technical since I didn't know for sure that the punch was spiked.

"Did you get some bad news or something?" Maybe Crona? It's not like she'd stopped worrying over Crona just because of a busy month.

Now some girls have the amazing ability to look pretty when they cry; Maka is not one of them, girls that look pretty when they cry are almost always girls who cry over everything. Even still… Maka Albarn looks pretty ruff when she cries and that's putting it in the nicest way possible.

She also sucks at crying, I can hardly understand a word she says when she's crying and she sobs so loud it's almost awkward. "T-this is the-" Sob "w-worst-" Sob, sob, "month ever."

Hold up a second, where was all the frustration and shit during the month? Ya' know when her mom was being a douche, her parents were sucking face, we were getting maybe 5 hours of sleep a night and she was busting her ass over school mostly to impress the douche of a mom.

"Are you crying over stuff that's pretty much over? There's only like 4 hours left in the month. You're being a little backwards here."

"I don't care." She sniffled before going back to loud sobbing and right then I realized that her runny mascara would probably never come off the white tie I was wearing. Fuck; this woman is going to make me go broke on clothing if she keeps bleeding on my stuff and getting makeup on it.

"Do I need to beat the shit out of someone?" I was really hoping she wasn't crying over her mom, maybe some guy or someone I could actually punch.

Yeah I did offer to help complete my own party checklist… what of it?

She didn't answer and just kept crying.

"Blackstar and Kidd will probably help…"

Still fucking crying.

"We can try getting Patty to jump in too, you know; Blackstar might've had to go back through puberty when she kicked him."

A small triumph, a tiny slightly choked-up giggle; that was more like it. I really suck at dealing with crying in general and Maka crying is hard for most people to deal with, I'd think; I'm not sure that I've ever gotten to see other people deal with her crying.

I sat down beside her because my damn dress shoes are the most painful things ever.

"My mom doesn't have nuts for Patty to kick."

"What'd she do this time?"

"She-"she paused for a sniffle "Well you say it like you expected it." What did she expect after I watched her mom be a bitch all month long?

"Didn't expect her to do it right now but, I don't know she seems a little less amazing than I've been told." I put it as nice as I could.

"Mmm well the stories really are true; she's an amazing meister… just not the best at other stuff. It's stupid to be t-this upset."

"What exactly did she do?"

She whipped at her face effectively smearing mascara or eyeliner one, I have no idea…

"Mama and I aren't the one ones who shop for formal wear last minute. Papa showed up to the shop to pick up a suit, and mama came knocking on the fitting room door to tell me that she couldn't stick around; she tossed her travelers checks under the door and left. I didn't even like the stuff in that store but I left a lot faster when Papa started nagging me to let him tag along, with me. I was trying to ignore him and thinking of just heading back to the apartment when I ran into Miss Marie, she talked me into going into a store and I got this… I guess it all turned out okay." She slumped up against me and sobbed again… not even asking if I wanted to be a human pillow "I think I'm being a b-brat."

"Because you're upset that your mom ditched you in a store because your dad happened to show up?"

"More or less. But she's been here all month and I've hardly seen her, I thought she was busy but she had time to suck face with Papa. I guess I remind her too much of him, I think she hates me."

"She's, just jealous." Thank you Professor Stein because I'm not sure I could have figured out what to say otherwise and that silence was just about to be too long.

"W-what?"

"She's totally jealous. You made a Death Scythe at a younger age, you've got a fucking- like angel soul, badass soul perception skills. She's a powerful meister but look at who is considered a better meister- Stein, her ex's ex partner and you respect him and talk to him more, if not get along with him better than your mom. You also managed to get a partner that is way cooler than what she had even if she's not up for admitting that."

"You're definitely cooler than Papa."

"It's a total understatement really."

She stood up whipping at her face smearing makeup even more "I look like shit don't I?"

I had to think for a second and carefully examine her to come up with a way to describe her face. "You look like a sharpie accident."

When the door to the nearest girls bathroom was locked Maka was considering going upstairs but my dress shoes, as I've already mentioned hurt like a bitch so I voted for just shoving her unwillingly into the men's room, it has mirrors, sinks and it's not like anyone would even be nearby it.

She came to a quick stop trying to make it harder for me to push her in but I wasn't having her stubborn attitude and kept pushing until I heard it…

"Maka!" Miss Marie's voice squeaked in shock and then I saw it. Spirit Albarn and Marie Mjlonir. Marie standing against the wall of a stall and spirit leaning against it looking as if he was cornering her, for a brief second I thought we'd walked into an adult P.D.A. that I could check off my Party Checklist.

"Papa!" Maka gasped

"Soul!" Spirit sounded slightly mad

And well since we were all yelling the names of one another I figured I might as well

"Death Scythe!"

And all at once

"It's not what it looks like!"

Admittedly, if it was what it looked like at least Miss Marie would make an okay step-mom right?

"I-I was just talking to Miss Marie about how she and Stein were trying to show Kami that-"

Marie cut him off "Your father's drunk!" No he actually looked sober for once

"No I'm, not. Wait Maka have you been crying?" cue her father invading all of the space surrounding her face "Makaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Tell Papa what's wrong, let me help you my angel!"

"Papa get off I don't want a hug!"

"What was he doing to you Makaaaaaaaaaa?"

If I was going to do anything to Maka why would I choose to do it on campus at a party?

"He was making come in here me clean my face because the girls' room is locked now let go!"

He wasn't letting go. "Makaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"

"Spirit it took us two hours to pick out that dress and if you tear it up I swear I'll-"

"Maka CHOP!"

And after Spirit getting an icepack from Stein for his damaged head, Maka and Marie taking way more time to clean up Maka's face than necessary Kidd, Liz, Patty, Blackstar and Tsubaki managed to track us down.

"Been looking everywhere for you two. What happened?" He didn't look like he had been looking everywhere but usually Blackstar is fairly honest about these kind of things; his dress shirt was probably stained before all the drama went down.

I glanced at Maka and she shrugged, I sighed "it's a long story."

We went back to the ballroom, Maka was chit-chatting with the girls and things felt like a normal party so I decided to go do what I do best at parties; brooding alone. It seemed like a better idea than usual my head was killing me and I really wanted to take my shoes off. I'd just slipped my shoes off scuffing the hell out of them, and planted my ass firmly on the floor of the balcony when I realized I was invading someone else's brooding space.

"Evans, Eater, whatever you're going by."

Kami of all people.

"Oh it's you." No I don't have to pretend to be polite to someone that my meister just spent time crying over.

"You kids are pretty strong. You took a damn demon blade to the chest before you were even close to being a Death Scythe. I'd watch out for Stein, not trying to be paranoid but he described your skin in detail" Scary.

So it was safe to assume that Stein had been the one to mention the Black Blood stuff to Kami; of course she'd still known the last name of Evans so that didn't mean for sure she hadn't done some snooping in my personal files.

"Who'da' thought my lankly little girl could work with a weapon she doesn't really synch up with a fight a kishin in a catholic schoolgirl uniform of all things. I thought Stein was just saying all that to be an ass. I mean who the hell puts girls in catholic schoolgirl uniforms for a mission like that? And we all call Spirit the perv!"

Did that mean Stein's crazy ass way of doing the mission in Austria had to do with rubbing his best student's abilities in the face of her mom and his old weapon's replacement meister?

Never pegged the doctor to hold such a strong grudge.

Also I think Kami was only just a bit intoxicated, someone had definitely spiked the punch.

"You make it hard as shit to do my job as a mom, I had to bitch over her being out late. My daughter fights monsters with a guy that looks like an albino shark and I could only bitch about her being out late."

I quirked an eyebrow at her.

"I'm supposed to worry."

"You're also supposed to have some contact with your kid, see them when you're in town, listen to them about what they can and can't do and not ditch them whenever their father shows up. Don't pin your ineptitude on me."

I could say whatever I wanted, however I wanted because she was drunk!

"I was the one who started the kissing, not him. He said he'd take the blame because he wouldn't want Maka upset with both of us."

Why in the hell was this drunken woman telling me all of this shit? If she didn't want Maka to know she started sucking Spirit's face then why not just leave me in the dark about the big secret too?

"Are you even listening to me you brat? Stop looking so calm about it I'm telling you I'm a shitty parent! Even right now I'm slammed off my ass drunk, I've known there's vodka in the punch since my first cup because I saw Blackstar and Kidd's weapon Patricia dump it in there!"

I feel like I should have known.

"Evening Soul, Kami."

Goddamnit it all! Stein should have known that the balcony is my brooding space; it had been for the past four major parties… that he's been to. I had half a mind to tell both him and Kami to get lost but Stein didn't seem drunk yet.

"Kami, there's an opportunity for you to be a parent. Your daughter is very close to the punch bowl and unless you want her to get Spirit's taste for alcohol I suggest you-"

And Kami was practically across the room within a few seconds, she seemed like Spirit for a second.

For a few amazing minutes I thought I had my brooding space again … but no.

"Thank god that got rid of her, I really need a cigarette and I didn't want her trying to bum one off-"

"You promised me a dance for cussing out Kami earlier." Marie was tapping her foot impatiently.

"I only did because you obviously wanted to. You know you feel better now too." Stein heaved a sigh and tossed the mostly unsmoked cigarette away muttering about women's "damn elephant-memories".

Finally peace and quiet would be all mine for the rest of the night.

That was only about three songs long.

Yay for midnight at least, the crappiest October ever was officially over!

Also just for the sake of mentioning, Kim and Ox got into a huge argument and while they made up a few days later I still count it as a breakup. Stein dancing with Marie is totally an adult P.D.A., Blackstar and Kilik did the fist fighting and Jackie and Harver's 48 hour relation-shit of random; counts as a hook-up. Adding on the earlier events officially filled my Party Checklist.

Yes; you were very curious about this.

Something about the main lights being turned on at the end of a concert or party always makes the crowd scurry out of a building like cockroaches in the dead of night when you go to use the bathroom. I had to weave against the mostly tipsy party-goers in search of Maka, the sooner I found her the sooner she could go to her P.E. locker, change her clothes and we could go home and I could sleep!

Her mom was looking more sober now and Maka was looking slightly pout-y but not like a rejected puppy as she'd looked when she was bawling her eyes out a few hours back.

"But I promise to come an extra week early next year and I'm spending it with you, so put in a vacation request so you won't have any missions."

Sometime while I was busy brooding, or trying to brood Maka and her mother ended up chatting over punch, apparently not the spiked punch judging by their sobriety. Good thing too because I don't want to know what a tipsy-Maka would be like.

Kami had decided after the making-out incident that she shouldn't stick around the city once her class was over. Shinigami-sama had also asked her to come back each year and teach the class since it had been deemed a huge success. Things seemed okay between everyone's favorite dysfunctional family at this point... and by "okay" I mean that Kami had went back to dismissing Spirit's every word, Spirit was a spazz once again and Maka was rolling her eyes at him, crisis averted, everything normal right?

I'm not a fucking idiot!

Nothing had really been solved, Marie was probably just telling Spirit his ex was a bitch when the two of them were in the bathroom and Kami was defiantly still a bitch and people don't really learn, especially stubborn people so that wasn't solving anything, Kami couldn't even admit to Maka to her face that she was an amazing meister so…

NOTHING OF ANY VALUE WAS RESOLVED.

Kami in Death City every October could only mean that October was always going to be uncool.

The crap I put up with for my meister. I don't wanna hear a single goddamn complaint from her when the Evans family stops by Death City for a visit; if and when Wes has a tour stop nearby.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Soul Eater series in general has a habit of not really resolving issues so I wanted to stick with that, espicially considering real life issues are hardly ever solved if you think about it. And I'm just not a fan of tying up all the ends of a story. She would also try sheltering Maka from the fact that she was peeved off with her mom.
> 
> I really do consider Soul's "Party Checklist" to be totally factual... just think about it really.
> 
> Miss Marie is such a loveable busy body I'm pretty sure she'd want to chew Kami out, then want to back out, then need Stein to persuade her most likely sick of hearing her fume about it.
> 
> One of my pet-peeves for Soul Eater fanfiction is when people imply that Soul is stupid. Just because he's not a straight A student and he tried to cheat on a test DOES NOT mean he's stupid. Grades don't always mean intelligence. I wanted to make sure from the start that I never portrayed Soul as stupid which is part of the reason I had him piece together some of what happened.
> 
> I'm a SoMa shipper really but I don't think this would have been an appropriate scenario for a make-out session... Soul can't fix everything with his tongue (or teeth). I also doubt Soul is going to make a move in a situation such as this it would be fairly tasteless wouldn't it?
> 
> As for Kami, I'm harsh on her I know this. Limited to Soul's point of view of COURSE I'm harsh on her pretty much everyone has at some pointed loathed a close friend's parent for some reason. I'm still harsh on her aside from Soul's point of view but I'd like to take the time to state the fact that I'm sure she's not an evil-self centered woman. Kami is simple the product of jumping into a marriage and family life at a young age (Spirit as well) and I have a ton of friends who are young mom's so I'm not trying to take a stab but...
> 
> If you're 18 tops and end up married with a baby before you've really had time to find out who you are; the chances of a marriage working are slim and it's hard to be a descent parent when you're young and inherently self-centered even if you're not intending to be. We can also assume Kami and Spirit didn't have a ton of friends who were moms either (unlike a lot of young parents now) so you can imagine it would be somewhat isolating.
> 
> Big thanks to everyone that's left feeback on this site or ffn.


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